adroit in evolving.

Similarly in the essay on "Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts,"
the style of clever extravaganza adopted in certain passages is witty,
certainly, but lacks the airy irresponsibility characterizing humour.
Sometimes he indulges in pure clowning, which is humorous in a
heavy-handed way. But grimacing humour is surely a poor kind of humour.

Without going into any dismal academic discussion on Wit and Humour, I
think it is quite possible to differentiate these two offsprings of
imagination, making Wit the intellectual brother of the twain.
Analytical minds naturally turn to wit, by preference: Impressionistic
minds to humour. Dickens, who had no gift for analysis, and whose
writings are a series of delightful unreflective, personal impressions,
is always humorous, never witty. Reflective writers like George Eliot or
George Meredith are more often witty than humorous.

I do not rate De Quincey's wit very highly, though it is agreeably
diverting at times, but it was preferable to his humour.

The second point to be noted against Dr. Japp is his reference to
Coleridge. No one would claim Wordsworth as a humorist, but Coleridge
cannot be dismissed with this comfortable finality. Perhaps he was more
witty than humorous; he also had an analytic mind of rarer quality even
than De Quincey's, and his _Table Talk_ is full of delightful flashes.
But the amusing account he gives of his early journalistic experiences
and the pleasant way in which he pokes fun at himself, can scarcely be
compatible with the assertion that he had "no humour."

Indeed, it was this quality, I think, which endeared him especially to
Lamb, and it was the absence of this quality which prevented Lamb from
giving that personal attachment to Wordsworth which he held for both
Coleridge and Hazlitt.

But the comparative absence of humour in De Quincey is another
characteristic of Vagabondage. Humour is largely a product of
civilization, and the Vagabond is only half-civilized. I can see little
genuine humour in either Hazlitt or De Quincey. They had wit to an
extent, it is true, but they had this despite, not because, of their
Vagabondage. Thoreau, notwithstanding flashes of shrewd American wit,
can scarcely be accounted a humorist. Whitman was entirely devoid of
humour. A lack of humour is felt as a serious deficiency in reading the
novels of Jefferies; and the airy wit of Stevenson is scarcely
full-bodied enough to ra